Humanum ex machina: Translation in the post-global, posthuman world

Mark O’Thomas
Newcastle University
Abstract

Translation sits at the epicentre of the biotech era’s exponential growth. The terms of reference of this discipline are increasingly unstable becoming as humans interface with machines, become melded with them, and ultimately become a networked entity alongside other networked entities. In this brave new world, the posthuman offers a critical perspective that allows us to liberate our thinking in new ways and points towards the possibility of a translation theory that actively engages with other disciplines as a response to disciplinary hegemony. This article looks at how technology has changed and is changing translation. It then explores the implications of transhumanism and the possibilities for a posthuman translation theory. Ultimately, the survival of translation studies will be contingent on the survival of translation itself and its ability to question its own subjective, posthuman self.

Keywords:
Table of contents

There is a scene in Alex Garland’s film Ex Machina (2015) where it becomes apparent that Kyoko, the beautiful Japanese personal assistant of technology Wunderkind Nathan Bateman, is a perfect robotic replica of a human, but with one significant flaw: she lacks the power of speech. This scene mirrors the core research problem of artificial intelligence (AI) over the past fifty years, because human language stands as the last, near-unattainable bastion that once cracked can open the floodgates to unimaginable consequences. In the film, these consequences come to the fore when it transpires that Kyoko is nothing more than an early prototype to the much more sophisticated Ava, whose advanced communication skills begin to problematize notions of humanity, consciousness and sentience. Like many other treatments of possible worlds where technological advance becomes linked with a dystopian end of humanity, Garland’s future is one where advancements in language processing pose a direct threat to human life. Ava’s ability to pass the Turing test gives way to more familiar plot lines that see her attacking the creators who made her while en route to a new sense of sentient freedom.

Full-text access is restricted to subscribers. Log in to obtain additional credentials. For subscription information see Subscription & Price. Direct PDF access to this article can be purchased through our e-platform.

References

Agamben, Giorgio
1998 Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Palto Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Avramidis, Eleftherios
2014 “Efforts on Machine Learning over Human-mediated Translation Edit Rate.” ACL , Baltimore, Maryland, USA, June 26–27, 2014. DOI logo
Boneva, Bonka S., Amy Quinn, Robert Kraut, Sara Kiesler, and Irina Shklovski
2006 “Teenage Communication in the Instant Messaging Era.” In Computers, Phones, and the Internet: Domesticating Information Technology, ed. by Malcolm Brynin, Sara Kiesler, and Robert Kraut, 201–218. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Braidotti, Rosi
2013 The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Camporesi, Silvia
2008 “Oscar Pistorius, Enhancement and Post-humans.” Journal of Medical Ethics 34 (9): 639–639. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Castells, Manuel
1989 The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2004 “Space of Flows, Space of Places: Materials for a Theory of Urbanism in the Information Age.” In The Cybercities Reader, ed. by Stephen Graham, 83–93. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2015 Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Chan, Sin-wai
ed. 2014 Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Costa-Jussa, Marta R, and José A.R. Fonollosa
2015 “Latest Trends in Hybrid Machine Translation and its Applications.” Computer Speech & Language 32 (1): 3–10. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cronin, Michael
2003 Translation and Globalization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2013 Translation in the Digital Age. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles
1992 “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” October 59: 3–7.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari
1984 Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. London: Athlone.Google Scholar
1988 A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. London: Athlone.Google Scholar
Feenberg, Andrew
2002 Transforming Technology: A Critical Theory Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fernandez, Maaike Villavicencio
2015 “Is New Translation Technology the End of Language Learning?” Last modified February 8 2015 Accessed February 3, 2016. http://​www​.presencegroup​.eu​/translations​/2015​/02​/08​/is​-new​-translation​-technology​-the​-end​-of​-language​-learning/
Friedman, Gerald
2014 “Workers without Employers: Shadow Corporations and the Rise of the Gig Economy.” Review of Keynesian Economics 2: 171–188. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garland, Alex
2015 Ex Machina. United Pictures International. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Graham, Stephen
2004 The Cybercities Reader. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Guattari, Félix
1995 “On Machines.” Journal of Philosophy and the Visual Arts 6 (8): 8–12.Google Scholar
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri
2009 Commonwealth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harrison, Peter
2015 “Immortals versus the Precariat.” The Australian Rationalist 97: 11–14.Google Scholar
Holmes, James S
1988 “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies.” In Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation Studies, ed. by Raymond van den Broeck, 67–80. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Kroker, Arthur
2014 Exits to the Posthuman Future. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Kurzweil, Ray
2005 The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co.Google Scholar
Lehman-Wilzig, Sam
2000 “The Tower of Babel vs the Power of Babble: Future Political, Economic and Cultural Consequences of Synchronous, Automated Translation Systems (SATS).” New Media & Society 2 (4): 467–494. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lopez, Adam, and Matt Post
2013 “Beyond Bitext: Five Open Problems in Machine Translation.” Proceedings of the Workshop on Twenty Years of Bitext , Seattle, Washington, USA, October. Association for Computational Linguistics.
McRobbie, Angela
2009 The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: Sage.Google Scholar
2016 “The End of the Social and the Denigration of Democracy? Wendy Brown, Michel Foucault and Neoliberalism: A Review Essay.” Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture 61 (1): 117–123.Google Scholar
Mitchell, David
2004 Cloud Atlas. London: Sceptre.Google Scholar
Morozov, Evgeny
2009 “Iran: Downside to the ‘Twitter Revolution’.” Dissent 56 (4): 10–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pym, Anthony
2013 “Translation Skill-Sets in a Machine-Translation Age.” Meta 58 (3): 487–503. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pym, Anthony, and Nune Ayvazyan
2015 “The Case of the Missing Russian Translation Theories.” Translation Studies 8 (3): 321–341. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schubert, Carl, Mark C. van Langeveld, and Larry A. Donoso
2014 “Innovations in 3D Printing: A 3D Overview from Optics to Organs.” British Journal of Ophthalmology 98: 159–161. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shirky, Clay
2008 Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Simon, Sherry
2006 Translating Montreal: Episodes in the Life of the Divided City. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.Google Scholar
2013 Cities in Translation: Intersections of Language and Memory. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Strangelove, Michael
2015 Post-TV: Piracy, Cord-Cutting, and the Future of Television. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Toffoletti, Kim
2007 Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman Body. London: I.B. Tauris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tyulenev, Sergey
2012 Applying Luhmann to Translation Studies: Translation in Society. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tryon, Chuck
2015 “TV Got Better: Netflix’s Original Programming Strategies and the On-Demand Television Transition.” Media Industries 2 (2): 104–116.Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence
1998 The Scandals of Ttranslation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 “Adaptation, Translation, Critique.” Journal of Visual Culture 6 (1): 25–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Williams, Martin
2014 “Tech is Removing Language Barriers – But Will Jobs Be Lost in Translation?” The Guardian, 19 September 2014 Accessed February 3, 2016. http://​www​.theguardian​.com​/education​/2014​/sep​/19​/tech​-removing​-language​-barriers​-jobs​-lost​-translationGoogle Scholar
Yahaya, Fola
2008 “Managing Complex Translation Projects through Virtual Spaces: A Case Study.” ASLIB Translating and the Computer 30: 27–28.Google Scholar